The Digital Fix: Television

Taboo: 1.06

Should we begin to wonder about James Delaney's worship of his mother? Especially when taking into account his incestuous relationship with his half-sister Zilpha?
Speaking of Zilpha, sadly she didn't kill her husband at the end of the last episode, he continues to be an malignant omni-presence in her life. The only person in London seemingly beyond the control of the Delaney's. The fate of Mr and Mrs Geary, however, isn't revealed to us until the second third of the episode though. There is, instead the matter of George Chichester's Royal Commission into the East India Company's illicit and doomed trade in salves to deal with. But it is to Zilpha Geary we, like her brother, always return to.
For while James deals with gunpowder and the Americans, Zlipha's rage, her revenge does finally find its conclusion. Though even this does not appear to please her endlessly gloomy brother. It's still gunpowder, treason and plot that primarily occupies him. And his mother.

The East India Company though, their focus is still laser-like. War has been declared and they mean to win. I'm not sure why they've waited until now to strike against Delaney's ship and holdings, why all the other prior reasons for restraint are no longer relevant. Other than the plot needed a little gunpowder of its own. But, what it got instead, was another dead girl, though probably at the hands of Delaney himself.

If it sounds like I'm wearying of Taboo, it's because I am. The show held such promise, but seems to be falling into the same trap as season 2 of Peaky Blinders, but replacing glamour with gloom. It's promise as yet unfulfilled, with the season 3/4 done. Even if the narrative manages to raise its weary head from the sewer, there's still the ongoing theme of violence against women. A tale, seemingly not of revenge against forces commercial, but Oedipal.

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